


The One with the Statue

by LittleHogwartsGirl



Series: Statue 'verse [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, deliberately vague setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:02:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleHogwartsGirl/pseuds/LittleHogwartsGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is a protest, a statue, and what doesn't quite count as an arrest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One with the Statue

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Effy](http://elloquente.tumblr.com) for helping me upload. Also to [Malin](http://dustintheimpala.tumblr.com) and Tove for reading.  
> Based on a true story, in which I went to a protest and things got out of hand. The original statue was a fountain, though.  
> Warning for very vague descriptions of (quite mild) police brutality.

It’s not... He doesn’t deliberately try to get into these situations.

Enjolras likes to think of himself as rational, perhaps passionate to a fault but definitely rational. Sure, he once stood up in class to loudly complain that a teacher was badmouthing communism and as a consequence got a string of Fs for the rest of the semester (though the teacher did have to pass him eventually, since he hadn’t actually gotten anything wrong besides, apparently, his political leanings), and once he was almost arrested (he stresses the almost) for ”defiling a landmark” even though he was just spray-painting ”Vive la révolution” over a mural he later found out was from the 1800s and painted by-

Look, the point is that he doesn’t try to end up like this, and yet he seems to have a tendency for it.

He would like to say that it was Grantaire’s idea, but Grantaire, sitting beside him in the back of a police car and probably asleep, is as innocent as he’s ever been. Meaning not very, but at least not entirely to blame.

It went like this:

The protest had been planned for weeks. Some bigoted small-town politician was making a speech in the square, with a handful of equally bigoted supporters, and the Amis had planned a peaceful (”Of course it has to be peaceful”, Combeferre had said patiently during their meeting, ”no one will listen if we’re not peaceful; this isn’t a revolution, Enjolras.”) protest to counter the drivel the politician had to say.

When they got there, a few dozen people with a few signs sporting various semi-catchy slogans, there was already a crowd. Another group, this one significantly bigger than the Amis and all wearing various shades of red, was already in place shouting abuse at the politician and his supporters, who were all cowering behind fences set up some twenty or thirty feet distant.

That wasn’t the problem. The Amis were used to being one group among many, and often the other groups were happy to have the support.

The problem was that the number of police officers easily outnumbered the Amis. There were probably close to fifty officers on foot, as well as five mounted on horses, one on an out-of- place motorcycle by the side of the square, and three police cars.

Combeferre, to his credit, and Joly and Jehan, tried to tell them it was a bad idea. Enjolras did have to take the blame for insisting they had peaceful intentions and weren’t going to get in trouble (though he’d like to blame Éponine, a little bit, for ignoring Combeferre entirely and just shouldering past them all).

The statue was Grantaire’s idea, and consequently his fault.

In the middle of the square, that afternoon just behind the masses of protesting students, is a statue which has probably been there for a hundred years or more. Standing by it offers a good vantage point, just standing on the pedestal offers a good view, and if one climbs to the top of it and hangs off the arm of the woman it portrays, one can both see and hear the entire square.

”I’m climbing it”, Grantaire said, not as a question but as a warning, and by the time any of them thought to stop them he was already slouching on the pedestal, eating a chocolate bar he must have fished out of his own pocket.

”R”, Enjolras said, disapprovingly, because he couldn’t very well see into the future and know what would happen, could he?

Grantaire just smirked at him.

It started getting out of hand almost immediately after the Amis had settled around the statue. The police started forcing people back, shouting repeatedly for the protesting crowd to move, the only result being that the protesters sat down on the smooth paving stones of the square.

”Traditional”, Combeferre said from his seat on Enjolras’ right. ”Sitting down to make it harder for them to move you. It’s- hey now.”

Someone in the crowd of red had raised their hand and tossed a plastic bottle, rattling with something inside, into the cluster of police and horses. A rumble had begun, voices whispering and shouting over eachother and talking and then slowly starting to echo off the buildings around them as the volume increased.

”Enj”, Grantaire said from behind him, voice low and urgent and efficient, nothing like his usual poetic rambling. ”Look.”

Enjolras looked to where Grantaire was pointing, into the mass of police officers moving around eachother, like ants on an anthill, one officer dragging a protester off the ground and away towards a corner of the square. The mounted officers were steering the horses towards the crowd now, the horses stepping nervously in circles and the protesters getting up and fleeing as the horses gained momentum.

”What is this, a police state?!” Enjolras said, outraged at seeing people treated like nothing so much as dirt, standing up to better gauge the situation. ”You can’t do that!” he added, shouting to the nearest officer. ”This is a peaceful-”

The officer had already turned their back and started none-too-gently shoving people back towards the statue and the back of the square. In their protected encampment, the politician and his followers were clapping at the retreating protesters, laughing even, and Enjolras was beginning to feel like revolution might have been a good idea after all.

”Enjolras!” Combeferre shouted, already swept fifteen feet away by the moving crowd. ”Don’t do a-”

The rest was lost as another wave of people rushed past the statue, and Enjolras realised that the only ones left by it were Grantaire, safe on the pedestal; himself, almost plastered to the front of it as people moved past him; and Éponine, crouched by his feet, looking up at him with the closest thing to fearful eyes he had ever seen in her.

”Enjolras”, Grantaire said, voice still low and measured. ”Get up here.”

Enjolras grabbed his hand and hoisted himself up onto the pedestal, standing on one side of it to leave room for Éponine to get up. She reached up for his hand, looking around, then did a doubletake and jumped back down into the crowd.

”‘Ponine!” Grantaire shouted from the other side of the statue, but he hadn’t even finished before Éponine had vanished among the people now gathered around the pedestal.

The police were still riding into the masses; people were screaming as the horses came far too close. Off to the side of the square, Enjolras could see half a dozen people in red kneeling on the ground with their hands on their heads.

”Someone has to stop this”, Enjolras said, mostly to himself, as he took hold and started climbing up along the bronze woman’s textured skirt. ”This is madness.”

”You can talk”, he heard Grantaire mutter below him.

In retrospect, he’d had better ideas.

In retrospect, he shouldn’t have added the thing about fascists.

In retrospect, he should probably have come down the first time the police told him, instead of refusing and shouting down a ”Don’t cooperate, R” as he heard Grantaire trying to explain the situation.

Once he had come down, he’d been pushed and shoved through the still rumbling crowd until he was put into an idling police car where he sat, fuming and handcuffed, until Grantaire let himself into the car, which then drove off.

”Where are you taking us?” he had shouted at the policeman at the wheel. ”This is kidnapping!”

”It’s relocating”, the officer in the passenger seat had said, far too gently for Enjolras’ liking. ”We are perfectly within our rights to relocate instigators at protests, and that stunt you pulled at the statue wasn’t going to end well either way.”

”Chill, Enj”, Grantaire had said, and then he had closed his eyes and leaned his head back and fallen asleep, the bastard.

So here Enjolras is, in the back of a police car, hands cuffed behind his back, Grantaire asleep and cuffless beside him.

”How come I’m handcuffed and he’s not?”

The passenger-seat officer laughs, again very gently. ”He offered to come with you, even though he wasn’t causing any trouble. Loyal friend you’ve got there.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes, even though he’s a little charmed and more than a little grateful. ”Yeah. Can’t get rid of him.”

”And you don’t want to, Apollo.” Apparently, Grantaire is a very good fake-sleeper.

”Go back to sleep, you idiot.”

Grantaire cracks an eye open and grins at him, loose and happy, as if they’re anywhere but in a police car with Enjolras still in goddamn handcuffs.

”Where are you relocating us, anyway?” Grantaire says, eyes still on Enjolras.

”There’s a bus stop up ahead, we’ll drop you there”, says the officer in the passenger seat even as the clicking sound of the turn signal and the feeling of the car makes it clear that they’re turning right.

Grantaire gets out on his own, to Enjolras’ chagrin, and then he doesn’t help at all but just stands around laughing as Enjolras is first helped from the car and then has to spend three minutes working the feeling back into his wrists.

”Stay off the barricades for a while, boys.” The police car accelerates and leaves them there, on an empty country road with nothing but a sign to indicate it as a bus stop.

”The statue was your idea”, Enjolras says after a minute of silence. ”This is your fault. When’s the next bus?”

Grantaire raises an eyebrow, casually attractive and slightly smirking. ”I’m not the one who told the police they’re fascist dictators with a monopoly on violence while hanging onto a ten-feet bronze woman’s arm.”

”When’s the next damn bus, R.” Enjolras doesn’t have the energy to make it a question. Luckily, Grantaire has his phone, and reception, and the next bus back into town is in two minutes. They get on and Enjolras slumps into his seat, rubbing his wrist where the cuff has left a red mark.

”This isn’t my fault”, Grantaire says as he takes Enjolras’ hand and starts gently twisting and turning it to see the damage. ”Which means I’ll be morally superior if I don’t say ’I told you so’.”

Enjolras shuts up, saves what’s left of his dignity, closes his eyes, and pretends not to notice that Grantaire doesn’t let go of his hand.


End file.
